Even Mother Amazed By Massive Pace

NFL draft preview

Pro scouts aren’t the only ones who marvel at Ohio State’s oak of an offensive lineman, Orlando Pace.

Thinking back to the pudgy kid with the voracious appetite, his mother shakes her head and says with a laugh, “I still try to figure out where this kid came from.”

Now Pace is poised to become the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft. Scouts describe him as a ballerina in a 6-foot, 6-1/2-inch shell, or “Twister” tipping the scales at 330 pounds.

But this is a tale of two Paces, the dominating blocker and the kid from Sandusky, Ohio, with a smile for everybody and an easygoing manner - off the field, anyway. He said he doesn’t care which team picks him Saturday.

“I’m just ready to go out and play football for whoever that may be,” the soft-spoken Pace said. “The anxiety is building up every day.”

Just like his reputation.

Pace’s legacy includes the “pancake” body count at Ohio State - a particularly vicious block that flattens a defender.

Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz described Pace last fall as “one of the best tackles in football today. And I didn’t say college football, I said football.”

An opposing defensive lineman, Wisconsin’s Tarek Saleh, wasn’t just worried about being blocked. “For that split second after he gets his hands on you, if he gets his legs underneath him, then he’s going to body-slam you. And then you’re done,” he said.

Nonetheless, the football star is a kind, gentle soul off the field. Apparently there is room for two people in that frame.

His voice is so quiet it seems to come from a child. He is good-natured and friendly, as pleasant socially as he is imposing physically. Kids gravitate to this Beanie Baby with two Lombardi Awards.

He started life at 8 pounds, 4 ounces, but that was the last time he was average.

“I kept him in sports to keep him out of trouble,” said his mother, Joyce Caffey, who had help from her father and brother in raising her family. “I tried to keep him busy because he didn’t have a father figure.”

The hardest part was feeding a growing boy. She worked the night shift at a crayon factory, so every morning she cooked a full breakfast - eggs, bacon, toast, grits - for Orlando and his sister.

Pace was an anomaly from the outset: quick feet on a huge body, sure hands with such girth. And in rabid Buckeye country, he loved Michigan.

“He ran the floor like a guard,” Michigan coach Lloyd Carr said, remembering trips to scout Pace playing basketball during the winter.

But after visiting Ohio State, Pace knew he fit in. He never missed a practice or game in his three years, and the Buckeyes went 31-7.

“I’d hear about him going to Michigan or Miami or Southern Cal or wherever,” Buckeyes coach John Cooper said, “but every Sunday night he would call me and tell me he was still coming to Ohio State.”

Pace’s Sandusky High School basketball coach, John Schlessman, said he saw Pace lose his temper only once in three years as a starter, when a player confronted him.

“The next thing you know, Orlando pushed him and the kid slid across the floor and out of bounds. He almost went through a bass drum that was just off the court,” Schlessman said.

By the time Pace was a high school senior, football coach Larry Cook worried that the big kid might hurt a teammate in a pileup.

“I never saw him in a foul mood,” Cook said. “But once he was on a football field, he didn’t smile and he didn’t say a whole lot. He just would light you up.”

Pace capped a storied college career when the Buckeyes beat Arizona State in the final seconds of the Rose Bowl to finish No. 2 in the polls. After much deliberation, he decided to give up his last year of college and turn pro.

Pace’s mother is already worried that her youngest might end up going to the Oakland Raiders with the No. 2 pick. (The New York Jets have the top pick). She missed a day of work last week, fretting over the prospect of her son being three time zones away.

But Pace said there’s no need to worry, no matter how far away he is, how much money he has or how many people are trying to knock him down to get to his quarterback.

“I’ll pretty much stay the same,” he said. “I don’t see myself ever doing too many out-of-the-ordinary type of things.”

Except, of course, on the field.